When I was a kid in hs and college, I was a great reader of 19th century novels. In them, characters were always drinking brandy. Even in my parents generation I remember brandy as an important adult beverage. There were even mixed drinks that were made with it (the Brandy Manhattan). Now I seem to never hear about it.

Any ideas why it's not so popular any more? Also, what is it? Is the word "brandy" a kind of generic for any fortified wine based liquor?

In purists terms, brandy is always produced from a fruit. But a great deal of brandy used as a fortification is produced these days from grain.

Distillation may go back to China 1,000 BC. The modern pot still method was perfecetd by Arab Moors in the 12th or 13th century.

Distilled fruit drinks used to be used as truth serum, to get enemies to talk. And its main use in Europe before the late Middle Ages was as a means to preserve dead bodies and to do science experiments, as well as to inlcude in medicines.

At my home, a good brandy pops up regularly between December and March. I am partial to Armagnac.

I too enjoy Cognac on occassion and in particular one called Alexandre Le Grande V.S.O.P., a wonderful, extreamly smooth, and one that displays a hugh nose, Cognac that I found here for $22. It is better than many Cognac that sells for 5 times that price.

BK, as suggested by Drew and Bucko, the good stuff is very palatable indeed. In my youth, I enjoyed many distilled spirits neat, or with a little ice - The Glenlivet, Tullamore Dew, Old Overholt, JD Black, Remy Martin, etc. Now I limit my alcohol consumption to wine with dinner. We keep brandy and good whiskies on hand to serve guests, but I choose to avoid them.

I didn't "equate" brandy with whiskey; they're simply both distilled spririts, brandy from wine and whiskey from malted grain (as far as my non-chemist mind can grasp). The alcoholic content of either is a good four times that of wine.

I've never been much for brandy, though I've had my share over the years. I can certainly understand why it's not as popular as it may have been some years ago. There's been a lot of recent marketing of all the latest designer tequilas and the hundreds of single malt Scotch, not to mention what seems to be a thousand new brands of vodka and almost as many new gins. We don't seem to be selling as much brandy in the shop as we did a few years ago, and I don't see much marketing out there promoting it. Personally, I'd rather a single malt Scotch. If I were to lean toward a brandy-like spirit, I'd most likely go for a Grappa.

There aren't many wine-based drinks I don't like KC, but grappa happens to be one of them.

Having said that, I once tasted 50 grappe (over two days) in Italy for an article I wrote. In that 50 there were about 6 I liked a lot--they were the smoothest ones. The best was a grappa that had a feminine quality to it; lean, luxurious, silky, seductive. After looking at my notes, the guy who was pouring told me that it was the only grappa in the lot that had been produced by a woman, which he described as lean, luxurious, silky, and sexy--in Italian, of course, so my wife, who was standing next to me, could not understand.